(11-12) 23:29 PST San Francisco -- Google Inc. co-founder Larry Page is planning to wed his girlfriend, Lucy Southworth, at a ceremony next month that is steeped in secrecy.
The event is scheduled for the weekend of Dec. 8 at an undisclosed location, The Chronicle has learned.
Page, 34, founded Google while a Stanford University computer science doctoral student and is now among the world's wealthiest individuals, with a fortune around $20 billion. He is, by a wide margin, Silicon Valley's richest bachelor.
Many current and former Google employees are expected to attend the wedding, along with Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin business empire, and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, according to sources familiar with the guest list. Former Vice President Al Gore was also invited but said he can't make it because he will be receiving the Nobel Peace Prize at a ceremony in Oslo, Norway, on Dec. 10.
"Larry Page allowed that, on the list of excuses, that was acceptable," Gore said in an interview.
But Gore said he's hoping to make an appearance at the wedding using one of the staples of the modern, high-tech world: video conferencing.
It's known that Southworth was a biomedical informatics doctoral student at Stanford, although it is unclear whether she has graduated. She has dated Page for well over a year.
A Google spokesman declined to comment.
Rumors of Page's wedding were published in The Chronicle, followed last month by a more detailed account in a Fortune magazine blog, but the publication quickly removed the post. The item suggested that the ceremony was to be held overseas because attendees were asked to bring a passport. A spokeswoman for Fortune did not provide details about why the posting was deleted.
Six months ago, Google's other founder, Sergey Brin, married longtime girlfriend Anne Wojcicki, a biotech entrepreneur. They successfully kept the ceremony, held in the Caribbean, a secret until after the wedding was over.
Google later invested $3.9 million in Wojcicki's company, 23andMe.
Southworth and Page are poised to become players on the international social scene by virtue of his wealth and connections. They've been seen at parties around the Bay Area, including a dinner for Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter and his wife, Anna, hosted by jet-setter Denise Hale at the Ritz-Carlton in October 2006, and in Hollywood at the Vanity Fair post-Oscar party in February this year.
Hale, who counts Princess Michael of Kent, Israel Philharmonic conductor Zubin Mehta and actor Michael Caine among her friends and has watched many a high-profile marriage come and go, gives Southworth and Page high marks - and hope.
"They are a very-well matched couple," Hale said. "She's stunning and bright, and he's very attractive and bright."
"What else do you want? They're very much in love, and they're going to be the next great couple to do great things together. It's a great combination."
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Chronicle staff writer Cecilia Vega contributed to this report. E-mail the writers at vkopytoff@sfchronicle.com, zcoile@sfchronicle.com and czinko@sfchronicle.com.
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